Ask the Author: Francine Beaton
Answered Questions (6)
Francine Beaton
I guess that's why I'm working on several projects. If none of them works, which luckily had not happened much to me yet, I use writing prompts: writing about cooking a favorite dish, the weather, a smell, an emotion or something similar. I keep it in a folder and sometimes I use it in another piece.
Francine Beaton
That I can live in my imaginary world and nobody thinks I'm strange. Okay, they do think I'm strange, but I can get away with that. That I can fall in love with someone new every couple of weeks without cheating on my husband. And I get to travel, mostly also only in my head.
Francine Beaton
Writing is hard work. Don't get despondent. Just keep on writing.
Francine Beaton
As usual, I don't work on only one piece. I'm finishing Taste for Coffee, the first book in a new series Taste for Love, which is set in Edinburgh. The whole series would be stand-alone novels and all deal with either something to drink or to eat.
I've started to work on a piece that was supposed to be a 20000 piece for an anthology, but now, 22000 words later, I realize that it's never going to work. The current title for this romantic suspense is At the end of the Rainbow and is set in Scotland.
The last piece I'm working on is an Afrikaans novel, which would be the first in my mother tongue and has the same theme as Eye on the Ball.
I've started to work on a piece that was supposed to be a 20000 piece for an anthology, but now, 22000 words later, I realize that it's never going to work. The current title for this romantic suspense is At the end of the Rainbow and is set in Scotland.
The last piece I'm working on is an Afrikaans novel, which would be the first in my mother tongue and has the same theme as Eye on the Ball.
Francine Beaton
Maybe years of following rugby and the increasing popularity of the game had been the inspiration behind, or the reason for the series, Playing for Glory, of which Eye on the Ball is the first book to be published. When you meet a fellow rugby enthusiast on a boat cruise on the Hudson during the Fourth of July celebrations, there had to be a reason why such a meeting made an impression. It was only on the long flight from New York to Johannesburg that the idea of the series started to form. Before then, I never considered writing about my beloved sport, not even romances. For the eight months since that New York trip, I plotted and wrote the first six books in the series and outlines of several other books. None of them was Eye on the Ball.
Francine Beaton
The first scene of this book popped up in my head while watching a Six Nations match in February 2017. I immediately typed it up, but I didn’t have much to go on apart from the scene and the names of the two characters, Jakes and Ange. The next few days it became clear that I needed to tell Jakes’ story, but I had no idea where the story was going.
A few days after I’ve written that scene, the rugby world was shocked by the passing away of the Wallaby Dan Vickerman. I’ve read many articles and watched panel discussions in which Dan’s death was discussed. One of those panel discussions happened on a New Zealand show, dealing specifically with the struggles of professional sportsmen and women. One panelist used the phrase that it was not uncommon for men in a macho environment not to talk about their emotions and fears as they don’t want to appear weak. It caught my attention and it stuck and eventually led to Eye on the Ball.
A few days after I’ve written that scene, the rugby world was shocked by the passing away of the Wallaby Dan Vickerman. I’ve read many articles and watched panel discussions in which Dan’s death was discussed. One of those panel discussions happened on a New Zealand show, dealing specifically with the struggles of professional sportsmen and women. One panelist used the phrase that it was not uncommon for men in a macho environment not to talk about their emotions and fears as they don’t want to appear weak. It caught my attention and it stuck and eventually led to Eye on the Ball.
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